VIDALIA — Concordia Parish is a disaster area, at least on paper.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared six Louisiana parishes — including Concordia and Tensas parishes — to be contiguous natural disaster areas due to the spring flooding from April to June of this year.

The areas considered primary disaster areas were the Mississippi counties that border the Louisiana parishes included the declaration.

Though the waters from that flood have long since receded and a drought followed, the declaration means that any farmer who lost 30 percent of a single enterprise to the flood is eligible for disaster relief loans.

Concordia Parish Farm Service Agency Executive Director Kevin Case said he doesn’t think many people in Concordia Parish will qualify for the flood assistance.

“The only reason we were declared was we were contiguous to several Mississippi counties,” he said.

However, Case said a disaster declaration for the summer drought, which killed much of the corn and other crops in the fields at that time and had a significant impact locally, should come through soon.

Likewise, the abnormally high rains that followed the drought, which delayed harvests and in some cases contributed to crops rotting in the fields, should have a disaster declaration soon, Case said.

“We have already taken measures to obtain a disaster declaration that will cover the excess rain we have experienced the last three or four weeks,” Case said.

“The local county emergency board met (Thursday) and determined we will have a 30 percent loss on cotton, soybeans and rice because of the 27 days of rain we had over the last month and a half.”